Future development work on CPAN::Reporter will include better handling for interrupted tests and better integration with CPAN.pm to be able to report failures in Makefile.PL and "make" even before tests are run.

Come be a CPAN Tester today!

-xdg

Code written by xdg and posted on PerlMonks is public domain. It is provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, of any kind. Posted code may not have been tested. Use of posted code is at your own risk.

It relies on Test::Reporter, but I think that if you have Net::SMTP, it will use that and make a direct connection to the perl.org mail servers. If your ISP firewalls outgoing email, you'll need to set a CPAN::Reporter configuration option to point to your ISP's mail server instead.

Please give it a try and let me know if that works for you.

-xdg

Code written by xdg and posted on PerlMonks is public domain. It is provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, of any kind. Posted code may not have been tested. Use of posted code is at your own risk.

I've discovered that you're missing a dependency on Module::Build. My virgin perl did not have this installed, and tests t/5*_test_report_* died. Once Module::Build is installed, the problem goes away.

--

Oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ?
My friends all rate Windows, I must disagree.
Your powers of persuasion will set them all free,
So oh Lord, won’t you burn me a Knoppix CD ? (Missquoting Janis Joplin)

You forgot to mention one thing: It is important that the cpan testers reports have the verbose test output. Otherwise, the authors will have a hard time interpreting the results and fixing their bugs. I have even heard a prominent CPAN contributor say that testers reports without verbose output are useless.

You can turn on verbose test output using the environment variable HARNESS_VERBOSE. After following xdg's steps, just run cpan as follows:

I have even heard a prominent CPAN contributor say that testers reports without verbose output are useless

I'm a little surprised by this comment. Tests reports, even without verbosity, include the details of failing tests, such as its label, line number, and any diagnostic output.

My own experience developing CPAN::Reporter and other modules is that almost any test report is helpful. The exceptions have been some issues with CPANPLUS where no details are provided, which I think had to do with Module::Build support. (I don't know if that has been addressed, and frankly, now that CPAN.pm supports Module::Build and does test reporting, I've stopped paying attention to CPANPLUS.)

Nevertheless, verbose reporting is an interesting idea and I'll put it on the Todo list to add as a configuration option.

-xdg

Code written by xdg and posted on PerlMonks is public domain. It is provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, of any kind. Posted code may not have been tested. Use of posted code is at your own risk.

One thing that I think is useful to note here is that docs for CPAN::Reporter state that

"Because cpan-testers uses a mailing list to collect test reports, it is helpful if the email address provided is subscribed to the list. Otherwise, test reports will be held until manually reviewed and approved.
Subscribing an account to the cpan-testers list is as easy as sending a blank email to cpan-testers-subscribe@perl.org and replying to the confirmation email."

I had installed several modules using CPAN and checked CPAN Testers and wasn't seeing any sign of my test reports. Frustration was the result-until I decided to RTFM. So sign up for the mailing list: it'll save people some work and you'll get confirmation that you are actually contributing.